“Wine is a celebration of life, not a luxury.” ‍

This is Gratsi’s, a premium boxed-wine company, guiding philosophy. Created by two wine drinkers who didn’t want to overpay for markups, Gratsi’s mission is to make wine uncomplicated and pleasurable. 🍷

But while Gratsi is a fan of keeping things simple, advertising online is anything but. 

Because Gratsi is an e-commerce business, digital advertising is the key to all its growth. But the 2021 iOS update was pummeling their cost-per-acquisition on Facebook and Instagram—complicating an already competitive space.  

That was Gratsi’s cue to contact Ubiquitous. Together, they doubled down on TikTok which, at the time, was starting to blossom as a viable marketing channel. 

In one month, Ubiquitous designed a TikTok strategy that got Gratsi in front of millions of new potential customers. By using up-and-coming influencers and strategically timing when they’d post their videos, Gratsi 10x’d their sales. 

The company, which once had to compete for advertising space, was now light years ahead of its competitors. Here’s how Ubiquitous’ TikTok strategy propelled Gratsi to a new echelon of marketing. 

Determining The Goal ‍

Founded in 2021, Gratsi was the new kid on the block. 

This made brand awareness its primary goal. It had to get its product in front of as many eyeballs as possible by targeting a broad audience. 

Ubiquitous knew TikTok was perfect for this awareness campaign. TikTok’s algorithm shows people what they like—instead of who they know—leading them to discover new items (such as premium boxed wine). 🥂

Ubiquitous settled on a high-to-mid-funnel strategy and began to optimize the campaign for impressions, clicks, and a high reach percentage. 

Selecting The Influencers 

While there were a handful of wine influencers on TikTok, Ubiquitous decided not to hire them. This is because Gratsi’s goal was virality. Although the wine influencers were relevant, they wouldn’t reach new potential customers. 

Instead, Ubiquitous sourced influencers based on two factors: 

➡️ Their audience age was above 21. 

➡️ They were consistently going viral (but didn’t have a massive following). 

Ubiquitous opted to not go for famous influencers because TikTok is a content-based platform, meaning that as long as the influencer was constantly creating shareable content, the algorithm would spread their videos. The reverse is also true—if a large TikToker stops producing content, the algorithm would suppress their reach. 

Plus, working with smaller TikTok influencers meant sticking to an affordable budget. 💸

Ubiquitous sourced 122 potential influencers for the campaign using over a hundred unique data points. The team then reduced the list further by using a technique called the "eye". 

“We call it ‘the eye’. I can look at someone’s profile and tell you almost exactly how many views they’ll get. It sounds like a superpower, but it’s the result of assessing profiles over and over—and your brain subconsciously picking up on patterns.” – Zach Fitch, Campaign Strategist 

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Creating The Content  ‍

Ubiquitous whittled down 122 potential influencers to 11. 

They ranged from travel bloggers, couples, moms, and trick-shot artists. Although they all seemed dissimilar, they were getting thousands of views and had an older audience. 

Ubiquitous asked each influencer to create two videos. The first one would have Gratsi as the main focus, while the second one could be anything as long as Gratsi was placed in the background. 

“After posting the first video, we wanted the next one to have the product sitting in the background. This would signal that the influencer does actually integrate the product into their lifestyle, rather than it being one sponsored post.” – Zach Fitch 

There was a buffer period of two to three weeks between each video so the influencer wouldn’t have a congested profile with sponsored posts. This helps preserve the influencer’s trust with their audience, and in turn, boosts a brand’s credibility. 📈

All in all, sourcing, negotiating, and locking in the influencers only took Ubiquitous one week. The campaign was now ready to get the ball rolling. 🏐 

TikTok Stats ‍

11 influencers released 26 TikToks during the month of July 2021 and together they accumulated around 7.5M views. Their CPM was $1.69, a 73.1% decrease from the standard industry average. 

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The videos also received a large amount of engagement. Unlike YouTube, where people can skip ads, TikTok integrates an ad organically into a person’s newsfeed. This led to thousands of people commenting on the videos asking where they could buy Gratsi or learn more. 

Gratsi’s campaign happened a year ago. 

But today, the up-and-coming influencers that Ubiquitous selected have all doubled (some even tripled) in size. While they’re big-name influencers, Gratsi was able to work with them for a fraction of the price thanks to Ubiquitous’ identifying proprietary technology. 

Gratsi opted to not create its own TikTok channel, and instead, continue to focus on hiring influencers. However, Gratsi continues to look at their business in a completely different light since the Ubiquitous campaign. 

Today, the company continues to steadily grow. 

‍“We’re much more data-driven, and now create campaigns based on who the audience and influencers are going to be. It’s worth the effort, because TikTok is a young market with a great ROI on ad-spend. It’s a great time to be advertising on a new channel.” — Stephen Vlahos, Founder at Gratsi ‍

If you’re looking to exit a saturated and outdated Facebook Ad Market, TikTok is your escape hatch. Here at Ubiquitous, we’ll blaze a trail for you through the entire process so you get the best bang for your buck—and blast past your competition. 

If you’d like to climb aboard, drop us a line. We’d love to take you to the moon. 🚀